


Engulfed by the Green

by Amethyst97Skye



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sensory Deprivation, Sleep Deprivation, Suspense, The Fade
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-14
Updated: 2017-03-14
Packaged: 2018-10-05 07:25:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10300991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amethyst97Skye/pseuds/Amethyst97Skye
Summary: "I will stand, and fight, and die on my feet because I will never live on my knees!" - Evelyn Trevelyan: 9:12 - 9:42 Dragon





	

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Only one person could bare the Mark and live. No one else could control its magic, not without being changed, corrupted and killed. Deep down, she knew this, understood this, and had long since accepted her fate.

It was dank and dark, her eyes submerged in shadows; her shivering body and chattering teeth filled the silence. She could hear her heartbeat, the voices hammering inside her head, the blood pounding against her ears. She could hear every shuddering, painful exhale - nails clawing at a chalkboard - and she felt each breath solidify in the air only to whip back against her face, biting her nose, lips and cheeks.

She was lying on something rough and worn, thin tatters of a corpse lined with something damp, dry and stale. With great effort, the turned over to evade the stench, rolling onto something harder, firmer, colder. Her fingers scurried back and forth unfeeling, noticing and acknowledging nothing more than the flat, smooth surface and how they seemed to glide, as if they were skating on ice.

Across the room, some considerable distance away, was a pocket of light flickering dimly, leaning this way and that. For a moment, she though it was transitory, perhaps a candle held in someone's hand. She discarded the thought quickly. Candles weren't forbidden, per say, but they were prohibited. Inside, at least. Arching her head to look up, she saw nothing, nothing resembling the outside world, and agreed she'd been mistaken.

Her head met hard stone and she cursed whoever had the nerve to steal her pillows, her blankets, her bed, coughing and spluttering in her haste. She remembered locking her door, closing the window, turning off the lights. It should be dark, and it was, but it shouldn't be cold, and no one should have been able to enter her room. Surely, she would have woken if someone broke in. They would have shattered the glass, tripped over her chair and fallen face first into her dirty laundry. Laughing hurt. Reluctantly, she put the image out of her mind.

She hadn't woken, it seemed, but then… what happened to the guards? They had security for a reason: to prevent this kind of thing, but she hadn't been robbed. No. No, she'd been kidnapped. In her sleep, locked in her room with the window shut and the lights off. There wasn’t a window here, not in a basement, but, maybe, there was a grate she could slip through.

It hurt to rise, to sit, so she didn't try to stand. There was a wall at her back and nothing within reach of her hands. It felt cold against her burning flesh, solid instead of battered, bruised and broken like her bones. Her legs hit something hard, angry and unyielding. Metal. It made such a loud _clank_ that it shook her skull and made her cry. She was still whining as she took to her hands and knees, crawling in the dark, feeling this way and that as her fingers glided across stone. It was wet, slippery, the stuff soaking through her clothes, chilling her to the bone.

Her hands found the metal, a metal bar, cold and burnished with rust and dirt and other disgusting stuff. It rose taller than she could reach without standing; she didn't trust her legs to support her, dead as they were, so she turned her attention right, then left, counting the bars. There was seven that way, and nine the other. Or, was it nine that way and seven the other? They stretched further than she could reach. She felt so small. There were thicker and thinner bars in the middle, creating something that vaguely resembled a door, with more bars where the wood should be. Had she counted those? Nine? Seven? Eleven? Sixteen, eighteen... twenty-one.

_Ready or not, here I come!_

Flinching back, she gave up counting and crawled away to rest by her wall. It was caked in dust and grime, but she didn't care because it felt warmer than the floor, kinder than the metal, softer than her stale blanket. She looked dead ahead at nothing and no one, just an invisible cell wall and door lurking out of sight, forever imprinted in her mind's eye. Then the shadows shifted and, for a split second, the world turned its soulless gaze upon her. The candle that wasn't a candle winked and died. Somewhere, up on high, a heavy door opened. It was followed by heavier, hurried footsteps belonging to someone big and strong. She curled up against her wall and tried to make herself small.

There was something sticky and grimy latching on to the tips of her fingers, so she picked and plucked it off, choking on stale air and salt as she stifled her cries and whines. Another door opened, the footsteps grew louder, so she picked faster, her fevered breaths turning to smoke before her eyes, beneath her nose, as if she was inhaling hot ash. Her throat hurt, her chest hurt, her head hurt - not enough oxygen, she knew - but the feet were thundering overhead, behind her ears, in front of her eyes. She picked at a scab, her fingers fell through the hole and she screamed, succumbing to and engulfed by the green.

* * *

 Chapter II:  
_They had a plan, reckless and revolting as it was. Now they just needed the prisoner. Several storeys beneath her feet, encased in earth, steel and stone, she could hear the woman's blood curdling screams._


End file.
